Trust and privacy
An opt-out stays an opt-out, whatever you import
Engage is the consent authority for messaging. It records what each guest agreed to, checks it at approval and again before every message, and works beside your cookie banner, not in place of it.
How does Engage record consent?
Channel by channel, with where it came from. Email, text and WhatsApp consent are held separately for each subscription group, so a yes to one is never read as a yes to another. Sign-up forms keep the wording each guest saw, and every import says which channels it vouches for.
- One record per guest, channel, subscription group and purpose: a yes to email is never read as a yes to texts or WhatsApp, and ads follow their own consent rules for each region
- Accepting a WiFi login's terms is never marketing consent; only an explicit tick counts
- Sign-up forms are always double opt-in, the box is never pre-ticked, and each keeps the version of the wording the guest saw
- A CSV import states the channels it covers and records who attested to the consent
- A subscription history for each guest and channel, with its source and evidence
What stops a guest being messaged after they say no?
Consent is checked when a campaign is approved and again immediately before each email goes. A guest who unsubscribes while an approved campaign waits to send is left out and counted as an exclusion, and an import cannot put them back with older or undated evidence.
- Email consent re-checked just before each message, not only at approval; texts and WhatsApp re-checked at hand-off
- An import, connector or API call cannot undo a guest's own opt-out with older or undated evidence; only the guest's own newer, dated decision can
- STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT and similar replies close that channel at once
- The suppression list survives re-import, so the same spreadsheet cannot resubscribe anyone
- A hard bounce suppresses the address, and a spam complaint opts the guest out of every email group
- The AI team can withdraw consent and pause a guest, and can never opt anyone in
Can guests choose what they hear about?
Yes. "Manage your preferences" in every email opens a page in your venue's brand. A guest can leave all marketing in the first screenful, or turn off a topic or take a break further down, so a guest who wants less does not have to leave. Texts and WhatsApp can be switched off there, never on.
- A branded preference centre with topics such as offers, weekly updates and events
- Pause marketing for a while instead of unsubscribing
- Guests choose how often they hear from you, counted across email, texts and WhatsApp together
Do you replace our cookie banner or consent platform?
No. Engage has no website cookie banner and is not a consent management platform. It works beside the tool you already use and decides who may receive marketing messages.
- No cookie banner, no consent platform, no TCF consent strings and no cookie scanner
- Your consent tool can send its decisions to Engage through a published, signed webhook; a withdrawal is always applied, and a grant only from a tool you have set as the authority
- Engage is the consent authority for email, texts and WhatsApp, the one place every send checks
Can I prove what a guest agreed to?
Engage keeps a receipt for each consent decision and links every message to the consent it was sent under, so you can answer "I never signed up" with the record itself.
- A receipt for every consent decision naming the wording shown, the lawful basis, the source and the venue
- Each message records the receipt it was sent under, shown on the guest's timeline
- A regulator proof pack gathers the evidence for one campaign, one guest or a date range
What happens when a guest asks to be erased?
More than 30 registered erasure routines, one for each place Engage holds guest data, blank the person's details and keep only what the law allows, such as the suppression that stops them being emailed again. Campaign counts survive, so your reports still add up.
- More than 30 erasure routines, one for each store that holds guest data
- Campaign statistics kept as counts after erasure
- Only a one-way fingerprint of the erased details is kept, so a replayed import, a connector back-fill or a form already in flight cannot bring the person back; if they sign up again themselves, they start as a new guest
- The guest is removed from ad audiences, your warehouse export carries a deletion record, and connected tools are told to delete them where the vendor allows it; for the rest, your team is told where to finish by hand
- Engage's own release tests fail if a new store of guest data has no erasure routine
How long does Engage keep guest data?
As long as your retention policy says. Keep contacts indefinitely, or set a number of months after which guests with no activity are erased. A visit, a click or a form submission restarts the clock, so a guest who still comes in is never removed because of an old sign-up date.
- Retention set in months, with automatic erasure when it runs out
- Any guest activity restarts the clock
How are US and Canadian rules handled?
With rules set by country and state, which support your own legal advice and do not replace it. US texting hours run as a pilot that the Purple team sets up with you.
- US texts held to 08:00 to 20:00 in the guest's own time, with 20 states on their own rules
- A STOP from a US number covers texts and WhatsApp together; email is never changed by it
- Canada's anti-spam law, including implied consent that lapses and express consent that does not
- You decide the lawful basis, and the tables support your own legal advice rather than replace it
How do you handle privacy requests, and where is data held?
Guests ask from a page you publish, your administrators approve each erasure, and your other systems are told when it happens.
- Self-service privacy page. Guests ask for a copy of their data, or to be erased, from a page you publish. Copies are built automatically, and erasure waits for your team to approve it.
- Subject access export. Everything Engage holds about a guest, as data and a readable summary. Only your account administrators can run one.
- Privacy request API. Your own privacy tools can request an export, or erase or suppress a contact, through the API.
- Erasure webhook. A signed message tells your other systems when a guest is erased, and carries no personal data.
- Where data is held. Two Google Cloud regions, the Netherlands and Los Angeles, with email sent through the provider's EU region by default. Ask the Purple team for Purple's data processing agreement and sub-processor list.
What else keeps a guest's choice intact?
A guest can say no by text reply, on a preference page or by asking your staff, and every route is honoured. A browser's privacy signal keeps them out of ad audiences. Your AI team cannot work around any of them.
- AI proposals name their consent. Every message your AI team proposes names the consent that covers it, and the approval shows how many guests that covers.
- Opt-outs in plain words. A text reply such as "please don't text me again" stops texts, in several languages, from a fixed phrase list rather than an AI model.
- Double opt-in for texts. Sign-up forms carry a separate, unticked box for texts and for WhatsApp, confirmed when the guest replies START.
- Browser opt-out signals. A browser's Global Privacy Control signal is honoured for every guest on forms and the preference centre. It keeps them out of ad audiences and never stops email, texts or WhatsApp.
- Objection to profiling. Every preference page offers "Don't use my activity to tailor or time messages", and once a guest chooses it, nothing switches it back on.
- Re-consent campaigns. Ask guests to confirm when your wording changes or their consent nears expiry. The link only asks, so it cannot revive consent that has gone.
Questions
Is Purple Engage built for UK GDPR and PECR?
Yes, through specific mechanisms: double opt-in forms that keep the consent wording each guest saw, consent recorded for each channel with its source, a re-check before every email, a suppression list that survives re-import, retention in months and erasure through more than 30 registered routines. Compliance also depends on how you collect consent and what you send, so no tool is compliant on its own.
Does Engage store the cookie consent my banner collects?
No. Your banner and its cookie choices stay in your own tool. Where you connect it, Engage takes that tool's decisions about marketing messages through a signed webhook, and it never adds a banner of its own.
If I re-import a list, do unsubscribed guests come back?
No. The suppression list survives re-import, and an import cannot undo a guest's own opt-out unless its evidence is dated after the guest's decision. The import result shows who was not resubscribed and why.
What does Engage keep when a guest is erased?
Campaign statistics stay in your reports as counts, along with the suppression and the evidence that the erasure happened. A signed webhook tells your connected systems, with no personal data in it, so they can handle the same request.
Who decides the lawful basis?
You do, as the data controller. Engage records the basis for each consent, asks for a reference to your own legitimate interest assessment when you rely on one, and gives no legal advice.
Record consent properly from the first sign-up
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